Love in the Library
by Madhuri
Summary: Hermione should have known better than to meddle in the affairs of a student... or rather, have an affair with a student. But when Dennis is desperate and Hermione is tempted, the oddest of things can happen.


Love in the Library

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. One quote stolen from the movie _Election_, and one quote from _Friends._

**Summary: **Hermione should have known better than to meddle in the affairs of a student... or rather, have an affair with a student. But when Dennis is desperate and Hermione is tempted, the oddest of things can happen.

**A/N: **Many thanks to the lovely Hildigunnur and Soupytwist for being brave enough to beta-read this.****

***

When Dennis Creevey entered the library, he was perfectly satisfied to see that not a single person looked up at him suspiciously. That was because he was being nonchalant. Very nonchalant. About as nonchalant as it was possible for him to look. It was perfect. No one had the slightest inkling about the thoughts that were running through his head at that point.

The truth was that no one cared enough to look up from their books and assess Dennis Creevey's temperament, but that didn't really occur to the boy. 

He found Hermione behind the rack of periodicals, standing on a tall stepladder, arranging the books on the top-most shelf.

"Hi, Hermione," he said.

Hermione looked down. "Oh, hi Dennis. I thought your study group wasn't meeting tonight." She started to charm the dust off the shelf.

"Oh, it isn't," Dennis said, nonchalantly. "I thought I'd just, you know, stop by."

"You can't come in here and try to look up my skirt everytime you get bored, you know." 

"I wasn't looking up your skirt!" Dennis protested, quickly taking a few steps back. 

Hermione came down a step and started to work on the next shelf. "Mm-hmm," she said. "What do you need?"

God, the way she said it just sounded so…

"Uhm," Dennis said. "I was hoping we could talk, actually."

"Oh? Hand me those large Arithmancy texts, please," she said, pointing to a book-laden cart next to Dennis.

He handed her the books and gulped, wondering how to proceed. It was getting quite awkward talking to the back of her head.

She finally finished arranging the books and climbed down the step ladder. She smiled at Dennis, dusting off her hands on the back of her dress. "If you're not busy now, would you mind helping me put these in their shelves?" she asked, and pointing to the dozens of leather-bound books on the trolley.

"Oh, um, sure," Dennis said, and followed her as she pushed the trolley into another aisle. 

"The Muggle Studies textbooks go on the bottom shelf," she said, pointing. "Sorted  alphabetically by author."

Dennis grabbed a few books and knelt down, putting them in their places a little slower than necessary. He wondered how he was supposed to bring the subject up. He looked up at her. She was quickly and systematically stacking some books on the higher shelves, humming softly to herself. She caught him staring, and he quickly looked away, his ears burning.

"Are these new?" he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"Freshly inked," Hermione said. "I ordered them just a week ago. You're going to have some marvellous textbooks for your seventh-year."

Dennis smiled weakly. The last thing on his mind at that point was academics. After they had unloaded about half the trolley, Hermione trilled "Next aisle!" and was off again. Dennis quickly got up and hurried to follow her. She had led them into a more secluded corner of the library, out of earshot from the students near the front.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Hermione asked. She re-arranged the existing books on the shelves to make room for the new ones.

"Well… it's my birthday next week, you see," Dennis began. "I'm coming of age."

"Wow, you're turning seventeen already? I remember when you were a tiny little first-year who followed his brother about all the time," Hermione smiled.

"I didn't follow Colin about _all_ the time!" Dennis protested. "And I wasn't _tiny_."

Hermione laughed, and sneezed as a bit of dust puffed out from between the ancient books. "You… you were tiny, Dennis. A little half-pint Gryffindor.You just don't remember."

Dennis decided to drop the subject. This wasn't the time to be discussing his former size. His growth spurt when he was fourteen was a blessed, blessed thing. But somehow it still didn't help him as far as his problem was concerned.

"Yes, so anyway… that's the problem. Um, my mates want to throw me a party," Dennis said.

"Nice of them," Hermione said. She had finished unloading the cart and started to push it back in the direction they came from, but Dennis reached out and grabbed her arm.

"If… if you don't mind," he said, "my problem is rather… personal, so could we just talk about it here, where no one can listen?" He quickly let go of her arm.

Hermione looked at him in concern, and folded her arms. "Are you all right? I mean, healthwise and everything?"  
"Oh, oh, yes, I'm fine, really. It's about this birthday party. It's a sort of tradition for the sixth and seventh-year boys. Well, when I say tradition, it's not much of one. Just started a couple of weeks back when Elian Adams and Mark Whett had their birthdays, and the seventh-years decided that they would have to cast _Castimonia_ charms on Elian and Mark."

"The… excuse me, the _Castimonia_ charm? But that's illegal!" Hermione said.

Dennis rolled his eyes. "Not since Ed Miller's dad got promoted to head of the Charms Regulations committee."  
Hermione looked dumbfounded. "Ed Miller's dad? Devon Miller? _That_ pervert is in control of the Charms Regulations committee?"  
Dennis sighed. "The _Castimonia_ charm isn't the only one that got legalised in the past few months, from the stories I heard. But it's the one that the seventh-years are going to use on me. And if it indicates what I am… you know…" Dennis turned bright red.

Hermione patted his arm. "Oh Dennis, that's nothing to be ashamed of," she said comfortingly.

Dennis gritted his teeth. "When the seniors found out that Elian and Mark were still virgins, you wouldn't _believe_ the humiliation they'd had to endure!"

Hermione frowned. "Was anything done against the school rules?"

"No," Dennis said darkly. "There are loopholes for everything. I'm talking about _humiliation_."

Hermione looked as if she was trying not to laugh. Dennis hurried on. "So, anyway, that's what they're going to do to me next week… and Hermione, you _know_ how awful those blokes could get. I'm talking about Ed Miller and his crowd. You had to deal with them when you were Head Girl, remember?"

Hermione tutted sympathetically. "I'm sorry for you Dennis. But what do you want me to do?"  
Dennis took a deep breath. "It would just make things easier… a _lot_ easier… if I could just lose my virginity before then." He said the last words very fast.

Hermione looked confused. "Natalie's not willing to sleep with you?"

"Natalie doesn't want to be anywhere near me," Dennis said glumly.

"Oh, right," Hermione said, looking embarrassed. "I'd forgotten you'd split up."

"She said that I was a loser," Dennis plowed on, hoping that maybe if Hermione pitied him enough she might…

"There will be other girls, Dennis," Hermione said, putting her hands on the book-trolley as if ready to move on somewhere else. "Lots of other girls."

"But see, the point is, I need another girl by next week!" Dennis said hurriedly. "Hermione, I don't know what to do. I really don't. Even Greta Olsen turned me down. I got so desperate that I actually approached that Ravenclaw prefect Julian Wills, but he told me that he doesn't do charity cases."

Hermione did laugh this time, and Dennis knew that he had to act before he lost his composure. He caught hold of Hermione's arm. "Hermione…" he stammered. "Could you…"

Hermione abruptly stopped laughing and stared at him in shock. "_Dennis!_" she said, looking scandalized. "I'm a _teacher_."

"No you're not, you're a librarian. And you told me that it's only a temporary job," Dennis said quickly.

Hermione looked flustered, then gathered herself together. "Nevertheless, I'm a member of the staff here and _you're underage!_"

"What's a few days?" Dennis said weakly.

Hermione wrenched her arm away from Dennis' grasp. "This conversation never happened," she said firmly, wheeled the trolley around and pushed off, leaving Dennis standing alone and dismayed.__

He spotted a calender on the wall. One week. Seven days. He tried to calculate some maths in his head and gave up. He had many, many hours left, that was for sure. There was still time. She'd come around.

***

Dennis would turn seventeen in three hours, the charm would probably be cast in ten, and Hermione still hadn't come around.

If Dennis were sensible, he would have given up trying to entice a staff member (and a librarian of all people) into bed with him, and instead would have tried his luck with Greta Olsen again. Maybe bribed her a bit, with promises of completed Transfiguration homework, or something. But no. He was still hounding after Hermione, and with such little effect. It wasn't just because of the wild stories he'd heard over the years, of the things that used to take place in her private study when she was Head Girl. It wasn't just because of the way her arms moved when she tied back her hair, or the way her robes stretched across her chest when she reached up to get a book from a high shelf. It wasn't because her calves looked so impossibly alluring whenever she wore a dress, or because she smelled like a strange mixture of lilac and rain. It was because ever since Hermione had come back to Hogwarts, she'd looked so… so _womanly._ So confident and experienced and somehow approachable at the same time. She was bewitching, and made Dennis Creevey not have any desire to be sensible, at all. 

She also made him realise how very good he was at grovelling. 

"Let me have this _one_ moment of glory!" Dennis pleaded, following Hermione into her office and shutting the door behind them. "I've never had one before. If you don't do this for me, I'll always be known as Dennis Creevey, that boffin who had an affair with the Giant Squid, the pipsqueak who was knocked out by a _Quaffle_ during the Quidditch finals, the loser who couldn't get laid to save his life."

Hermione sighed. "Dennis, you're a lot more than that."

"Yes, well, you're the only one who believes that." Dennis shoved his hands into his pockets, looking as dejected and forlorn as he could be. He glanced up at Hermione, who was arranging and re-arranging some files on her desk, and seemed determined to ignore him.

"Don't you remember what it was like to be my age?" Dennis tried again,

Hermione raised her eyebrows at him. "I remember that I felt no inclination to do something just because I was afraid of what others might say if I didn't. Dennis, I think you should leave now. If you see Natalie, tell her that she can't work in the library tonight, because I'm re-cataloguing the Restricted Section, and I don't want any students messing about."

Dennis was determined to stay. He leaned forward and put his hands on the table. "It's not because of this stupid charm, Hermione…" he found himself saying. "It's because of you."

Hermione looked surprised.

"I've loved you for so long," he blurted out.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "This is not going to work Dennis," she said.

"You have to believe me!" Dennis cried out, suddenly feeling a lot braver now that he'd admitted how he felt. "You're everything to me, Hermione. We've only been friends for a few months, but you're the best friend I ever had."

"Dennis…" Hermione sighed.

"And I just… I _want_ you," he blundered on. "I want you so badly. You're the sexiest woman I've ever seen."

For a moment he thought she was going to slap him, but then, oddly, she looked flattered. She leaned down towards him and put her hands on the table as well. Their faces were only inches apart.

"Dennis," she said quietly. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I do," he said. "Do you want me to convince you?" Dennis suddenly cupped Hermione's face in his hands and kissed her. 

She made a little start of surprise, but didn't pull away and punch him in the gut. Dennis buried his hands in her hair, pulling her closer. He had no idea that anyone's lips could be so incredibly soft, or pliable, or so warm and wet. He groaned as she opened her mouth further underneath his. His head was buzzing like mad, and he wasn't really aware of what his hands or mouth, or anything, was doing, but he had a faint suspicion that maybe, just maybe… yes, she _was_ kissing him back! And then she stopped and pushed him away, and they stared at each other from opposite sides of her desk, breathing hard.

"Merlin's toenails, Dennis," she gasped. "Where did you learn to _kiss_ like that?"

Dennis had a sudden urge to say something grand, and passionate, and romantic, and heartfelt, but the most he could manage was "Guh."

She looked down at the desk, and at Dennis, and at the closed door of the office. Then, with one fluid movement, she swept every single file and parchment and book and quill off the table. 

"I've always wanted to do that," Hermione said, as she sat on the desk and swung her legs over and onto it. She laid back on her elbows and looked at Dennis. He felt paralysed, from head to toe, although one certain part of his body seemed to be fuctioning quite enthusiastically. 

"Nothing leaves this room?" she said quietly.

Dennis found his voice. "Nothing," he said, and climbed on to the desk, wondering if it would creak and crash under their weight, but it held. He gingerly laid himself on top of her, not sure what to do or where to do it and feeling very embarrassed and incredulous at the whole situation, but all doubts disappeared when he felt her soft body underneath him, and he caught hold of her shoulders and kissed her. 

And this time, Hermione most certainly _did_ kiss him back, and he thought his heart would burst out of his chest, it was pumping so madly. She ran her fingers through his hair, down the back of his neck, and suddenly they were at his waist, tugging at the belt of his robes. His brain must have shut down completely then, because when he looked back on it he couldn't remember how she'd got their clothes off so fast, but she did, because the next thing he knew, her bare body was pressed up against his and he kept forgetting to breathe. 

Then she threw her legs around his waist and pulled him in to her, and Dennis felt so helpless and overwhelmed that he could only bury his face in her hair, crying out something unintelligible again and again, until suddenly he saw stars, and his whole body went limp.

Hermione giggled a bit, and he could feel her chest moving underneath his. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Dennis couldn't respond for a few seconds. Then he propped himself up on his elbows and stared at her in disbelief. "More than all right. I mean, _much_ more. Oh Christ. I mean, you read about it in the magazines, you practise it on your own, but the real thing… just _wow!_"

Hermione laughed, a deep, throaty laugh, and Dennis leaned down and kissed her, wondering how he could have been so lucky. She entwined her fingers in his hair, and he moved his hand down the side of her hip, when they heard the door creak open. 

Dennis and Hermione pulled apart immediately and stared at the doorway, too stunned to move. Natalie MacDonald walked into the room, took one look at them, let out a small whimper, and slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

"Oh God," Hermione gasped. 

Dennis stared at the unconscious girl lying on the floor. "Do you think there's any chance she didn't actually see anything?"

***

The next morning, McGonagall called Hermione into her office for a small meeting. It wasn't much of a meeting. Hermione handed in her resignation to the Headmistress, who accepted.

Hermione packed quickly in her room, wanting to get away as soon as possible. She had faced many horrors in her life, but they all seemed to pale in comparison to the look on McGonagall's face. She left the school through the secret passages she had frequented back in her days as a student, to avoid running into anyone who might know of what happened the previous night.

She sat, stooped over, on her trunk at the Hogsmeade railway station, chin resting in her hands, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She allowed herself a little sigh of self-pity, but that was it. This whole mess was her fault, after all. As usual. She stared listlessly at the train which had just pulled into the station. She would have to board it in fifteen minutes, but she absolutely no idea where to go.

She heard someone cough behind her, and turned around. She was surprised, but not very, when she saw Dennis Creevey, looking at her with a rather nervous expression on his face.

"I, um, I came to see you off," he said a bit sheepishly. 

Hermione quickly stood up and narrowed her eyes at him. "You're supposed to be in school."

"It's only a Sunday, I'll go back in a minute, I promise, I just… I just didn't want you to leave before I had a chance to apologise," he said.

Hermione held up a hand and shook her head. "Please," she said. "It really makes no difference. Nothing can be done now, anyway."

"I just feel so awful," Dennis said, and he did in fact look awful. Hermione allowed herself to soften a tiny bit.

She shrugged. "It was a mistake, and now I'm paying for the consequences. That's all."

"Do you _have_ to leave?" Dennia asked earnestly.

Hermione gave him a lopsided smile which didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm very lucky to be _allowed_ to leave, just like that, with no real action taken against me. In case you forgot, last night you were still a minor. McGongall didn't make a fuss because she knows me, and likes me… Or used to, anyway. She said that she appreciated the fact that I didn't try to memory charm Natalie, and that she would try and keep what happened a secret. Of course… we all know that keeping a secret like this in Hogwarts is like… is like…" She sighed again, not really wanting to complete the analogy.

Dennis suddenly reached forward and pulled her into a hug. Hermione smiled to herself and hugged him back. They both dropped their arms after a few moments and took a step back. 

"You're a really good person," Dennis said, shoving his hands into his robe pockets. "You've been a great friend to me. And… you were _brilliant_ last night."

_Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush_, Hermione willed herself. _He's just a student. Can't you remember this _now_ at least?_

"It was just your first time," Hermione said flippantly. "You'll meet lots of other girls, have sex with them, and forget all about me."

"Oh, that's impossible!" Dennis said vehemently. Hermione allowed herself a small laugh. Dennis suddenly ducked his head, looking shy. "Although…" he said, "Natalie MacDonald agreed to get back together with me today morning."

Hermione tried not to panic. "You mean she actually _didn't_ see anything last night? She doesn't know?"

"Oh, no, she got an eyeful last night," Dennis said. "And that's why she's so impressed. All my mates are, too. Hell, everyone in Hogwarts is right jealous of me. Do you even know how many people have been wanting to jump you ever since you came back to Hogwarts?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"No, really!" Dennis insisted. "I guess that nerdslut image you've got really turns people on."

Hermione couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. "That's technically _not_ supposed to make me feel better, but… it does."

Dennis held out his hands, and Hermione took them. "What will you do now?" he asked.

Hermione bit her lip, not really wanting to answer that question. "Well, I can't go and live with my parents, not right away, because they'll want to know why I lost my job and I've never been able to lie to them. I can't live with Ron, because his pet monkey gets awfully jealous. I can't live with Ginny, because her fiancé keeps trying to feel me up. I suppose I _could_ go and live with Harry and his boyfriends, but their place is always so crowded and smelly." Hermione sighed. "They never wash their underwear."   
She shrugged helplessly. Dennis abruptly let go of her hands and took a step back, looking vaguely ill. "Well, um, I-I'm really sorry, again," he stammered.

The people around her started to board the train, and Hermione realised that she would have to leave in a minute or two. She took a step closer to Dennis, wondering if she ought to say what she was about to. "Just for your information, Dennis," she said in a low voice. "Last night was pretty amazing for me too."

His jaw dropped. "_Really?_" he gasped.

Hermione smiled at him. She turned around, gathered up her bags, and started to levitate her trunk towards the train.

"_Really?_" Dennis repeated, following her.

Hermione got the trunk on to the train, and pushed it inside into her compartment, underneath her seat. She put her bags on the overhead carrier and came out to stand in the doorway. Dennis was looking at her with an incredulous expression on his face.

"Really," she said.

He let out a loud whoop and punched his fist into the air. She smiled at him. The train began to move, and Dennis walked briskly alongside it, trying to keep up. Hermione leaned against the doorway and folded her arms. "Make sure you send me an owl once you're out of school, won't you?" she said. "I'd love to… catch up."

Dennis looked as if Christmas had come early. He jogged faster, trying to keep up with the train. "Of course!" he yelled. 

"Make sure you get back to school quickly," she instructed.

"Yeah, yeah, I will…" Dennis panted. "You're amazing, Hermione Granger!"

She smiled at him again and went into her compartment..

Dennis stopped running abruptly when he realised that he'd almost run out of platform. He stood, trying to catch his breath, and watched the train as it rounded a corner, until it disappeared into the horizon.

***


End file.
